


I don't want to forget (about that kiss)

by CaptainGay



Series: The Wilds prompts [6]
Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Confrontations, F/F, Fluff, Lack of Communication, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 06:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30135525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainGay/pseuds/CaptainGay
Summary: Prompt: bunker reunion leads to a first kiss, maybe fatin kisses Leah and totally takes her by suprise but the other girls all enter room before she can ask her about why she kissed her. They then avoid each other at school when they go back til Leah confronts her in the toilets or something and then they confess feelingsPrompt says it all! Fatin kisses Leah in the bunker, but when they get back to school, she acts like it never happened. Leah finally gets fed up with ignoring it and confronts Fatin in the school bathroom.
Relationships: Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke
Series: The Wilds prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208834
Comments: 8
Kudos: 113





	I don't want to forget (about that kiss)

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing in entirely present tense! I usually use past tense verbs when describing current events in fics, its just more natural for me. But, I wanted to try something new and am pretty happy with the results.
> 
> Enjoy :)

Leah hears her door unlock and she begins to mentally prepare herself for another  _ conversation _ with her  _ favorite _ agent. She is surprised when, instead of Faber, in steps Agent Young. She breathes a sigh of relief.

Agent Young takes a few small steps into her room, but does not come any closer. Leah sits on her bed and waits. She does not know what he is here for. It could be for any number of things. Her first thought is that they want her to keep telling them about the island. But, if that was the case, he would have said so the second he opened the door. Perhaps then, he was there to play good cop since Faber had been doing such a horrible job at it those nights he tried to pry Leah for more information. But, Young remained standing silently by the door.

There was a third option. One that worried Leah. Somehow they had discovered her escape attempt. It had been three days since that night (well, Leah assumed it had been three days, it was hard to tell). She had snuck out, an alarm had sounded, she had hidden in an unmarked room, and then she had found something she still couldn’t quite comprehend.

Leah had seen the footage of a boys island for no longer than a few moments before she heard voices in the hall. She made a split-second decision to return to her room. There was no telling how much longer her absence would go unnoticed and she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to create a plan in which she did not escape alone. She then somehow returned to her room unseen and in the three days since, no one gave any indication they had known of her escape.

So, for a few awkwardly silent moments, Young stands just inside the room while Leah runs through all the ways the interaction might go. He clears his throat, indicating he is about to speak. Leah thinks she sees relief wash over his face, but it quickly falls back into his impassive expression Leah recognizes from their “interviews” (she knew they were really interrogations).

“It's time.” That’s all he says, but instantly Leah knows what he means. She springs to her feet, barely caring enough to slip on her shoes.

This moment, the moment she is finally cleared to see the others, the moment she knows means they are going to leave soon, is the moment she had been anticipating during every waking moment. It was always there in the back of her mind, no matter what else she was thinking of, the question of  _ when. _ When will the quarantine be lifted? When is she allowed to see the girls? When will they be leaving? When will all of this be over? The answer to all of those questions is  _ now _ .

Agent Young steps out into the hall and Leah wastes no time in following suit. He leads her through the maze of concrete walls and unmarked doors. Leah is hot on his heels, almost running directly into him a few times he slows to turn a corner. They finally come to a door in a hallway Leah had never been in before. She thinks she might have been there before, but everything looks the same, so it is hard to tell where she has and hasn’t been.

Young opens the door and motions for Leah to go inside. She does. She isn’t sure what she was expecting, but isn’t surprised by what she finds. The room is as bleak as her own room there, as boring and lifeless as all the halls. It reminds her a bit of that one time her father took her on a tour of an old navy warship. The tables and benches are reminiscent of a military mess hall. Of course, this place was built for the military. It was probably  _ designed _ to make its inhabitants go crazy. Her room had certainly felt like solitary confinement.

Another thing Leah notices is that she’s alone. She is the first one to be released from her room. She isn’t quite sure what to make of that fact.

“Take a seat, if you want.,” Young breaks the silence. Leah turns to face him. “The others should be here shortly.”

Leah nods. He looks at her for a moment, like he did on that day he took her out into the courtyard. It doesn’t make her uncomfortable, he looks at her much in the same way he looked at the picture of his daughter he had shown Leah. Young might not be on her side, but she trusts him far more than she trusts Faber. He turns to leave the room, pulling the door shut as he goes.

“Thank you,” Leah says before the door fully shuts. The door stops, inches away from closing. He must have heard her. The door shuts and Leah hears the lock click. There was no reason for her to try and escape the room, knowing that the others would join her soon, but she still makes a mental note that the door only locks from the outside.

She turns to survey the room again. The tables and benches are bolted to the floor and are painted a dull shade of grey. There is nothing else inside the room except an air vent near the ceiling, too high to reach and also bolted shut. There are no windows, so all the lighting is from the industrial light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. There is nothing to look at, nothing to keep herself occupied. Leah thinks momentarily of sitting down, but she is far too restless and would only stand up again in a few moments.

She begins to pace the room, pulling at her eyebrow. Her anticipation builds every second. It had only been a few days since she saw Shelby, since she had real human contact for a few fleeting seconds, but it feels like eons. The sound of the door unlocking pulls her to a stop. The sight of the girl standing in the doorway stops her heart.

In no time at all, Leah is being enveloped into a hug. Her mind flashes back to that day on the island when they saw the plane, when they thought they were going home. The position they are in is exactly the same as that day. Fatin’s arms are around her neck, their bodies pressed close. Leah is standing still with shock and it takes a second for her arms to wrap loosely around Fatin’s waist. She feels Fatin’s head slump in relief and Leah tightens her arms around her, keeping her close.

Leah looks out, sees Young standing in the doorway, a small smile on his face. She looks at him, tries to convey another “thank you” without words. He seems to understand. He nods and closes the door.

They stand like that for what feels like hours. The hug couldn’t last long enough. Seeing Shelby, hugging Shelby, had been good. It had been amazing, actually, just to see her and know she was alright, even if she looked a little worse for wear. But hugging Fatin? All the stress left Leah’s body and she felt like she could finally breathe again.

After a while (but still not enough time), Fatin pulls back. They are face-to-face, Fatin’s arms still around Leah’s shoulders and Leah’s around Fatin’s waist. Leah is beaming, she knows it. But Fatin looks scared. Leah doesn’t have to ask to know why. She feels it, too. She was scared she would never see her again. She isn’t entirely sure why she thought she would never see Fatin or the others again. Realistically, they would have been reunited eventually. But Leah knows fears aren’t always realistic.

Suddenly, Fatin’s hands are on the back of Leah’s head and she’s being pulled forward. Lips are on hers. Fatin is kissing her so desperately, Leah can’t help but kiss back. Leah wasn’t going to lie, she had thought about this for a long time. At least as long as they had been in the bunker, maybe even longer than that.

Somewhere along the line, her feelings of friendship for Fatin had developed into something else. Her intense endearment and appreciation for Fatin, the only one who ever seemed to believe her theories, became an intense attraction and fondness that she could no longer deny was romantic in nature. She had that realization one night as she lay awake, surrounded by unfeeling concrete walls. The separation was the catalyst. To keep herself busy, she would remember happier memories of the girls from the island. Most of them were centered around Fatin and, of course, Leah had to analyze why. Her heart ached and she longed to see Fatin and she just  _ knew _ .

Leah guessed, as they kissed until neither of them could breathe, that maybe Fatin felt the same way, too. She would never get to ask, though, for at that moment the door unlocks. Fatin practically rips herself away from Leah. She looks mortified and Leah cannot comprehend why. She had kissed back, did Fatin not realize that?

She doesn’t get to ask about that, either. The door opens and the next girl to arrive is Toni. Fatin puts on a happy face that Leah can tell is half real, half to hide from Leah, and she turns to greet Toni. There is no time to talk to Fatin as more and more girls arrive, everyone trading hugs. Fatin seems to be avoiding Leah as well, and her heart sinks. Perhaps it was a mistake, a spur of the moment reaction, just an accident. Maybe Fatin didn’t feel the same after all. Leah tries to forget about it.

* * *

Leah can’t forget it. She can’t ignore it any longer, either.

Two months. They had been back to school for two months. For almost three, Fatin had been ignoring her. Well, not entirely, but it was noticeable to Leah.

For that three week span of time before she was allowed at school, Leah didn’t get the chance to see Fatin. Her time was spent in meetings with her lawyer (the eight were taking Gretchen to court), therapy sessions, family bonding because her parents felt guilty sending her off to an experiment, repairing her friendship with Ian, and coordinating with teachers for the part of the semester she missed because she was stranded on a fucking island. Leah and Fatin texted occasionally during those weeks, but the conversations were always shallow and whenever Leah tried to get her to open up, Fatin would switch topics or stop responding.

She and Fatin were cleared to start school on the same week. The kiss and Fatin’s behavior afterwards had constantly been on Leah’s mind and she was hoping to finally be able to get some answers. It proved extremely difficult and Leah was getting tired of the game they were playing.

Around others, whether it was just Ian, classmates sitting a few desks away, or other students in the hallway, Fatin would be friendly with Leah. She would act almost like they used to back on the island, laughing and joking like old friends. There was a difference there, though. She was distant, didn’t reach out to put a hand on her arm when she laughed at one of Leah’s jokes like she used to, didn’t sit as close as possible anymore. She hugged her sometimes. She hugged Leah in greeting in the mornings, hugged her goodbye after school. It was always brief.

When they were alone, though, Fatin took any excuse to get away. She started picking up her brothers from school so she had an excuse not to hang out with Leah once they got out of their last class. Unless Ian was going to be with them, Fatin always found a reason she couldn’t hang out over the weekends. She even began to call Dot on the phone during lunch whenever Ian couldn’t join them and the only other people around were too far away to hear any conversation between them.

She was driving Leah crazy. Once it marked two months since being reunited with Fatin after they left the bunker, Leah decided enough was enough. She would no longer allow Fatin to ignore the kiss they shared and she would no longer ignore Fatin’s avoidance of the subject.

The bell rings and Leah leaves her second class of the day. She had been thinking of how to confront Fatin all last night and this morning. It has to be somewhere Fatin couldn’t easily escape (and Leah tries to ignore how stalkerish that makes her sound) and it has to be somewhere private, since Fatin just wouldn’t say  _ anything _ if another person could hear. She is still thinking of this as she walks down the hallway and spots none other than Fatin walking into the girls bathroom. Not waiting to second guess herself, Leah follows her inside.

In the bathroom, there is a girl washing her hands at one of the sinks. Leah stares at her and flicks her head at the door. The girl grabs a paper towel for her hands before leaving. From her position near the door, Leah can clearly see that only one of the four stalls are occupied and she already knows who is using the one. She shuts and locks the door to the bathroom behind her, thankful the school staff are too stupid to take precautions against students doing things they aren’t supposed to in the bathrooms.

“Nobody better be fucking in here while I’m trying to pee,” Fatin announces loudly. Leah wants to smile, but forces herself to scowl even though Fatin can’t see her.

Leah hesitates in responding. She isn’t sure whether or not to make her presence known. Fatin knows someone is there, but she is yet to realize it’s Leah. Leah wonders if the shock of finding her waiting outside the stall would help or hinder her in trying to get Fatin to talk. She decides, in that moment, to respond, hoping her honesty encourages Fatin to be honest in kind.

“Fatin, we need to talk.” Her words bounce off stone walls and Leah suppresses memories of hearing her own screams reverberate in her concrete cell all those months ago.

Fatin doesn’t respond. She hears the toilet flush and the latch on the door slide unlocked. Fatin steps out of her stall and looks at Leah. Her face is stoic, she does not look like she intends to open up to Leah, but Leah won’t leave until she does. Fatin walks to the sink to wash her hands.

“There is nothing we need to talk about,” Fatin says to her with her eyes locked on her own face in the mirror. Leah walks up to the sink beside her and turns to face her.

“Can you please stop ignoring me?” She says it so pleadingly, but she doesn’t care. Begging Fatin to talk to her is not beneath her. All Leah wants, so desperately wants, is for Fatin to talk about what happened.

“I’m not ignoring you. I’m talking to you right now.” Fatin still won’t look at her. 

“Just because you’re talking to me doesn’t mean you aren’t ignoring me.” The second the words leave her mouth, Leah regrets that she snapped at her.

Fatin grabs paper towels and begins to dry off her hands. She doesn’t reply. Leah takes a deep breath. She needs to remember to be calm. Yelling at Fatin has never ended well for them. The last time it had happened, Fatin had disappeared into the woods for an entire day and Leah had thought she had gotten her killed.

“We can’t keep ignoring what happened.” She words her sentence to not place the blame on Fatin. Really, she knew if Fatin had just talked about it one of the many times Leah had tried to ask, they wouldn’t be here now. But, maybe Leah hadn’t tried hard enough, too afraid of Fatin thinking it was a mistake.

The warning bell rings. They are going to be late to class if they don’t leave now. Leah holds her ground. Fatin finally looks at her, but her expression is still the same.

“We’re going to be late to class,” Fatin tries, once again, to ignore the conversation they need to have. She tries, also, to brush past Leah for the door. Leah reaches out and gets a grip on Fatin’s bicep. She doesn’t squeeze hard or yank her back, but Fatin stops walking.

“We  _ can _ keep ignoring it. It’s best if we both just forget it ever happened.” Leah’s heart drops at Fatin’s words and her grip on her arm falters, letting Fatin pull her arm free. She doesn’t move toward the door.

“You don’t really want that, do you? To forget it ever happened?” Leah can’t help the crack in her voice as she asks it. She doesn’t want to believe the answer could be yes. The signs point to no. If Fatin wanted to, she could leave the bathroom right now. Leah was no longer holding onto her, but she was still standing there. She also came to a stop the second Leah put a hand on her arm, she didn’t even have to physically stop her from leaving. There was also the fact that, if Fatin really didn’t feel anything for Leah, she could have just cut her off, gone back to how they used to be before the island. But, she didn’t.

The late bell rings. Fatin is still turned to face the door, not looking at Leah. She hasn’t said anything, but Leah can see the shallow breaths she’s taking. She is either angry or anxious and Leah doesn’t remember ever seeing Fatin anxious before. Leah decides to throw caution to the wind. Things would either end very well or very badly.

“I don’t want to forget,” she says in a whisper.

Leah doesn’t have much time to react. Fatin is turning to face her and is pressing her against the sink so quickly, all Leah can do is go along for the ride. Fatin’s hands are on her waist, fingers digging into her sides a little too harshly, and the sink is being pushed uncomfortably into the small of her back, but none of that matters because Fatin is kissing her. Fatin is kissing her and it is rough and needy and Leah never wants her to stop.

Her own hands find themselves on Fatin’s shoulders and she slides them up to thread her fingers in Fatin’s hair, messing up her bun as she does so. She nips at Fatin’s lower lip and earns herself a moan. She almost lets out an undignified yelp, herself, when Fatin’s hands move behind her thighs and she suddenly hoists Leah up onto the sink. Her first thought is that she hopes she doesn’t break the sink by sitting on it and her second thought is how in the hell did Fatin get that strong? Fatin’s astonishing show of strength sends a wave of heat through her body and Leah promptly forgets her first thought.

Sitting on the sink makes Leah even taller than Fatin, but now Fatin is standing between her legs and Leah can’t bring herself to care that her neck is going to hurt from how much she has to bend down to reach Fatin’s lips. Leah’s hands have moved to cup Fatin’s face, while Fatin’s hands have found their way to her hips again. Calloused fingers slip underneath the hem of her shirt and Leah gasps. She pulls away to look at Fatin. Fatin’s eyes open slowly and Leah looks down into unbelievably dark brown eyes, pupils dilated with desire. It takes a great deal of strength not to lean back in for another kiss.

Fatin has an adorably dopey smile on her face. Leah almost teases her about it before it falls. Leah is relieved to see the openness on Fatin’s face, but her heart tugs painfully at the sight before her. Fatin looks worried, remorseful, terrified. Leah cradles Fatin’s face in her hands and Fatin leans into the touch, some of the worry and fear ebbing away. She grazes her thumb across Fatin’s cheek and waits for her to speak.

“I’m sorry,” Fatin whispers. She pauses, then, “I was scared.”

“Scared about what?” Leah speaks softly, the moment between them fragile.

“A lot of things.” Leah waits silently for Fatin to continue.

“I was scared you didn’t feel the same way, or you weren’t emotionally available yet. Or that I might scare you away. Or that I wasn’t good enough for you.” Fatin takes a breath.

“I was scared about becoming like my father, about my lack of any real relationships. I was scared that anything we felt was just some weird way of coping with the shit about the island and that once we got back, it would all go away and I fucked it all up for nothing.” Leah waits a few moments after Fatin finishes speaking to be sure she said everything she needed to say. She never stops gently stroking Fatin’s cheek.

“You don’t have to be scared about those things anymore, alright? You didn’t fuck anything up, you won’t scare me away, you aren’t and will never be like your father, you have always been good enough for me, and I –” she hesitates. It might be too soon. “I love you.”

All of the guilt, the nervousness, the fear on Fatin’s face melts away. She stares up at Leah in awe. For a split second, Leah was afraid she had been the one to scare Fatin away, declaring her love so soon. But looking at Fatin’s face, the softness of her eyes? Her heart felt whole.

“I don’t know if I can say it back, yet,” Fatin whispers. Honesty, what she wanted from Fatin from the start.

“I don’t care if it takes you five years to be ready to say it back. I just want you to be honest.” Leah smiles down at her and Fatin smiles back. She doesn’t need to hear Fatin say it, she can see it in the way she looks at her. Fatin had been looking at her like that since Rachel pulled her from the sea, Leah just hadn’t realized it until now.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, and hits are all cherished and appreciated!
> 
> Send me an ask or come chat on tumblr if you like. @i-can-see-queerly-now


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